Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes does not want Abe Hamadeh to have a chance to document more problems from the 2022 General Election. And Fontes is willing to use the full weight of his office to pressure the Arizona Supreme Court to shutdown Hamadeh’s challenge to Kris Mayes’ current 280-vote margin of victory in the attorney general’s race.
Fontes is also using taxpayer funds to make legal arguments in support of Mayes, who is a defendant in the challenge in her capacity as a candidate, not as attorney general.
And you only have to look at the court docket to see that attorneys for Mayes and Fontes appear to be working together.
Hamadeh filed a petition for special action with the Arizona Supreme Court on Aug. 3 seeking to get the justices involved in the election challenge sooner than later. Justice Kathryn King set an Aug.11 deadline for any responses to the petition.
At 12:06 p.m.Friday, Fontes’ taxpayer-funded attorneys filed a response that reads more like a partisan attack than a legal argument. Equally important, the filing clearly shows Fontes is not treating the Hamadeh v. Mayes election challenge in a non-political manner.
In the filing, Fontes notes “Our Attorney General has included a recitation of facts in her response. Rather than repeat them here, for purposes of economy, we incorporate those facts herein by reference.”
The only problem is that Mayes had not yet filed her response with the Clerk of the Arizona Supreme Court, and would not for another three hours.
Yet for Fontes to know what candidate Mayes intended to argue in her response, Mayes or her attorneys had to have shared her planned response or legal strategy with Fontes.
Fontes’ response is also unusual for the fact the secretary of state’s office is a nominal defendant in the election challenge and not a direct party. It is also notable that neither the Maricopa County nor Pinal County defendants opted to weigh in with the Arizona Supreme Court on Hamedeh’s petition.
Like the Secretary of State’s Office, each of the 15 counties are nominal defendants.
Fontes also uses his elected position to argue that Hamadeh and his legal team be sanctioned by the Arizona Supreme Court. But again, Fontes is not the person who is the subject of the election challenge – Mayes is.
Both Fontes and Mayes draw attention to the fact the 2022 General Election was nine months ago. Their responses seek to blame Hamadeh for the long, drawn out legal action, but the delays are well-documented to be the fault of Mohave County Judge Lee Jantzen.
It was Jantzen who presided over the evidentiary hearing, aka trial, in Hamadeh v. Mayes back on Dec. 23. Six days after the judge dismissed Hamadeh’s election challenge, a hearing in a Maricopa County courtroom revealed the results of the statewide recount in the attorney general’s race.
The Dec. 29 recount hearing is where the bombshell was first dropped about serious mismanagement of Pinal County’s election, with hundreds of ballots not counted on election day. Details which Fontes’ predecessor Katie Hobbs was aware of but kept from Hamadeh, Jantzen, and presumably Mayes.
On Jan. 3, Hamadeh filed a motion for new trial with Jantzen. It was the second business day
after the recount results were announced and the day after Mayes was sworn in.
From there, the case has suffered delay after delay brought on by the judge, who on Feb. 6 had all the filings he needed from the parties to rule on the new trial motion or schedule a hearing on the matter.
But the hearing date was not even announced by Jantzen until April 11. The hearing itself was not held until May 16, and Jantzen’s ruling on the motion was not released by the judge until July 14.
Jantzen then failed on July 17 to keep his written promise to address several other motions long-pending in the case.
Mayes focuses in her response on arguments that Hamadeh must first seek relief from Jantzen or from the court of appeals in order to fight for a new trial. She also joins Fontes is arguing in support of attorneys fees and sanctions being imposed against Hamadeh.
A reply from Hamadeh’s legal team is due to the justices by 4 p.m. Aug. 16. Justice Kathryn King previously advised the parties that the Court will consider the matter based solely on the filings.
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AZ Supreme Court Wants More Briefings In Hamadeh V. Mayes Case